


Tailored To Fit

by ShadowflameBlade



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowflameBlade/pseuds/ShadowflameBlade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just how oblivious is Julian Bashir, anyway? Maybe not as much as Garak thinks, and maybe he can offer more understanding than Garak expected. Collection of ficlets gathered into one work. Trans!Garak fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TerokNorTailor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerokNorTailor/gifts).



> Based on TerokNorTailor's trans!Garak headcanons.

**Trim**

Garak cuts his own hair.

To those who would ask, he offers a cynical smile, and a dry comment that he is not so trusting as to allow some other hand so close to him with anything sharp.

It is explanation enough, and it cultivates his infuriating air of mystery admirably.

In truth, insofar as he would use that word, everything is far more complicated than mere caution could explain.

The sound and feel of it, the sight of his glossy black hair falling to the floor around him… they stir memories he does not wish to face in public, memories of daring defiance harshly punished.

(And he does not have Mila, here, to cluck and trim his hair into a better shape, so he must take care to get it right the first time, just like everything else.)

He gathers up every last hair afterwards for disposal, and fusses over the result until he can be sure it is immaculate, and only then can he leave his quarters and wonder, perhaps, if Doctor Bashir will notice –

– but of course he will not. He is oblivious, the good Doctor, as he has been to all else.

And yet… Julian comes to their shared meal tousled and flustered, with a comment on how he wishes his hair was so easily tamed, so that he needn’t fear being late for the sake of a comb, and when Garak slides gentle barbs into his speech regarding the apparent chronic shortage of said combs in Julian’s life it is to cover an uncharacteristic flicker of hope.

Perhaps he has noticed after all.


	2. Hem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bashir isn't really that oblivious after all, and he can make his moves for himself.

**Hem**

Who could have thought that Doctor Bashir’s wide-eyed boyish smile could hold such devilment?

And yet it does, as Julian says earnestly, “Now, Garak, you can’t have thought I would ignore the way you looked at me forever.”

This is not the Julian that Elim Garak has imagined on tipsy nights in his own quarters, when sketching out notions of how this conversation was supposed to go. He is bold, this Julian, and knowing, and that smile is bright as he asks, “Well, am I wrong?”

“About a great many things.” The wry retort escapes Garak, who longs to retract it immediately upon seeing the glee flicker and die in Julian’s face, and he hastens to add, “But not, as it happens, about this.”

It is fortunate that they are in a secluded corridor, as Bashir’s triumphant whoop would have drawn far too many eyes otherwise, Garak thinks, but he is smiling despite his own immense self-control at the realisation that Bashir’s delight is not mere smugness or vindication, but the happiness of one who has very much wanted something to be true.

The old sheepishness returns in a rush though to Bashir’s face as he recalls the time, and that his shift is soon to start, and soon enough he is apologising and dashing away in a long-legged sprint that is as ridiculous as it is endearing.

When they meet again, it is on the Promenade, but even in public it is not as though the words were never spoken, for this time Bashir walks Garak back to his chambers and asks, rather quietly, if it would be all right to kiss him.

It is, and he does, and his enthusiasm makes Garak ache with suppressed desire for hours after he is gone.

(Desire, and a hint of nagging worry about what Julian might think later…)

But the worry is a matter for later. For now, he can go to bed with the memory of Julian’s lips against his.


	3. Mend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bashir learns new things, and Garak discovers how good it can feel for some truths to be known by the right person.

**Mend**

It is a slow affair, this newfound discovery, conducted with the tentative air of friends who fear to lose their friendship, but fire simmers beneath that slowness, and some days Garak almost wishes he could simply pull Julian into his bed on the spot, for fleeting hand-touches and long looks only whet his ardour, not quench it. He wants this more than he can say, but his caution cannot truly leave him forever, and he finds himself grimly predicting the consequences of all of the worst scenarios, even the ones his rational mind knows are quite ridiculous.

Whatever else Garak is, though, he is not without courage. Something must be done, and he must be the one to do it.

When Julian next comes to meet him, Garak does not come to the door.

Instead, with artlessly casual absent-mindedness, he peers around a doorframe once Julian is inside, and informs him that he is earlier than expected.

Garak is bare from the waist up as he steps into the main room of his quarters, and only his long years of practice allow him to maintain his composure. Julian is a doctor – this, he will notice.

He does indeed – with a startled little sound, Bashir gazes upon his collected scars, and asks who could have hurt him so badly.

With a wan and weary little smile, Garak answers, “My dear Doctor, surely you recognise the marks that surgery can leave behind.”

“When done poorly, yes,” Bashir says, frowning, “but I’d have thought someone would have taken a dermal regenerator to scars like those years ago.”

“Oh, no,” he says, still smiling wearily, “for a man like me, Doctor, scars can be the only history I am able to keep. One cannot declare a scar classified, after all.”

“This one is secret, then?” Bashir is touching a thin line low on his ribcage, and Garak’s skin tingles. “And this one?”

“Those, yes. These you may have the truth to, though.” He gestures higher upon his chest, to the first scars Bashir had noticed, the ones of surgery gone awry.

“I may?” Bashir tilts his head, curiosity captured on both medical and personal levels.

“Yes. They are… the legacy of my body’s unfortunate error. I am, Doctor, something of a self-made man…” His lips curl wryly at the pun, and he sees comprehension flood into Bashir’s eyes. His voice is, for a wonder, level as he asks, “Does it make a difference?”

“None.” Julian is kneeling, suddenly, and pressing gentle kisses to those scars, and smiling up at Garak with open affection. “You’re Garak. That’s what matters.”

Garak finds he must close his eyes for a moment, then, and he holds Bashir against him like a man at sea might cling to a raft.

They are kissing , soon enough, and more, for Garak finds himself bared entirely to Julian’s sight and to Julian’s touch, and discovers, with considerable delight, that whatever else he may have teased Julian on for human naivete, this particular human is a very, very swift learner when it comes to anatomy.

Even the sight of Julian’s face between his thighs is overwhelming in itself, but the rest – the rest is beyond what he had dared hope, and Garak finds himself without composure, without restraint, without anything except pleasure and a delight he had never thought to find here.

Politics and practicalities will return to their full importance soon enough, but for now, they are irrelevant.

For now, everything is as it should be.


End file.
